legislative materials available to the general public in the communities of the state.                                  .       .  .•;• •'•¦.
¦ Session Laws
The bill as introduced in a session must go through several mechanical as well as procedural processes before it becomes a law. Among -the states there is great variation in the schedule . for and types of processing through which a bill must go before' it evolves into a session law in a bound-volume.
A majority of the state legislatures have all bills duplicated or printed when they are introduced although in a few states this practice is limited to major pieces of legislation. In five states bills are not printed until they are assigned to a., committee, but in one-fourth of the states they are not printed until after they receive committee approval or in second reading. There is a wide variation in the printing of amendments to bills. Most states have advance sheets of•the session laws printed as' the bills are signed into law.  Six states do not have the session laws printed individually but wait until the bound volume jLs ready. Pour states publish the new.laws in newspapers. •¦ Am-•¦' ohg the states, it takes an average of from three to five months before the, bound volumes of the. session laws become available.
Alaska then is not untypical of most of the states in having all bills printed when they are introduced.  In the Territorial Legislature the tern "printing" meant mimeographing- . Desk copies of bills remained in this form until the bill was signed into law or otherwise became law. The original bill and its final version were typed, and.retyped on special paper to receive the certifications of both houses and the signature of the governor. The mimeographed editions were kept in the working files until the advance sheets or slip laws were commercially printed and made available.
. f" Once a bill became law, true copies were transmitted.Jto theL Director of Finance for chapter numbering and immediate deliver"^ tq,.the printer. ^5 The printer, a capital city firm/ -was'¦>required to produce a certain number of "advance sheets" or uslip sheets" of each law within a certain time after the delivery of the copy to him. . These advance or slip sheets were then delivered /to the Director of-Finance for official distribution1to the legislature and. other agencies and for sale to individuals';-Most of the laws passed during the session were available in this printed form by the time the legislature adjourned. - ' .. ' • - •
/4 See.table:; "Bill and .Law Printing Practices", Book of -the
States, 1958-59, PP. 46-47. /5 Sees. ,4-3-7 thru 4-3-14 ACLA 1949 cover numbering, printing,
and distribution of session laws.- *    .  .
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